What is the advantage of trading through a broker dealer? Are you trading in very large lot sizes if so at what lot size does it make sense to use one? Thanks.
Does anyone here scalp the markets? Would you say 20-30% of gross PnL going to commissions is acceptable for such a trader?
Why not ? I prefer having a method that produces consistent profits and giving 50% in commissions to my broker, than to have an unreliable, volatile system while only paying 5% in commissions. As long as you are net profitable, it is all good, or no ? Of course I would always look to get my costs down. Many ways for a scalper to do this.
Definitely as a scalper. On my best years, around 10-20% was going to commissions + exchange fees. On my worst year( 2012 ), I paid close to 50%. I was trading around 1000 lots per day, had reduced IIP fees and looking for 1-2 ticks profits. IMO it's still better to look for high alpha trades where you can be profitable on non-member rates but at the same time, the guys making a real killing are the one trying some kind of market making strategies trading 10000+ lots per day averaging 0.2 ticks per trade...
I am assuming your question is commissions and fee's as a percentage of net profit (P minus L). I day trade mostly equity futures, averaging about 6 trades per day on the ES and twice that on the NQ although any given day can be twice that. I own a lifetime platform license so my commissions and fees average around 11-12% of net profit which is close to the entirety of my business expenses.
What instruments were you trading? What's IIP? On stocks and currency I find it really hard to overcome commission for faster trading.